Paparazzi
by nanno
Summary: Archer will follow him forever. Implied one-sided Archer/Giovanni.


this is something that i wrote around 2010 out of a joke prompt on the pokemon kink meme ("i'm your biggest fan, i'll follow you until you love me, gio, giovanni") that i decided to dig out. i hope it isn't too terrible; even in 2010 my writing was rather rusty.

* * *

"_Fuck_!" Archer curses vehemently as he strikes his desk with his palm much harder than he had intended to, earning a satisfying flinch from Petrel. "Incompetent fool! It's your fault that the plan failed!" He breaths loudly, heavily, his angry glare fixed on the man. Across the room, Ariana gives a condescending tsk at the both of them. He should do something about her, he thinks, but right now it's not important. What's important is-

"Calm down, man," Petrel replies, raising his hands defensively. His tone is patronizing and his eyes are full of pity, pity that Archer doesn't need to see from someone beneath him. "How was I supposed to know the kid was going to use that Murkrow to get into the radio-transmitter room?"

"You lost the battle and you gave her the password, no less!" the executive snarls, and the force of his anger sends him out of his chair with his fists balled much too tightly. The weight of their failures begins crashing down on him all at once and he spits out in frustration, "Am I the only one who can do something right?"

Ariana raises an eyebrow at him. "He's right, Archer, calm down. You don't have to be so desperate to find him." Her eyes narrow mischievously in hopes of a reaction, a look that Archer pointedly ignores. He doesn't need this from her, not now.

"We're taking over the Radio Tower next. Don't screw this up." His tone is unintentionally sharp and filled with emotions that shouldn't belong to him, but right now he doesn't care. He flicks his wrist as a sign of dismissal, and the two of them leave him alone in the room, albeit resentfully. Alone, he rests his chin on his clasped hands and stares forward, burning holes in the walls that were much too white; walls he'd always known. Walls he'd only known. He'd lived within them all of his life, because being in Team Rocket was all that he could remember anymore, and now they glared at him, bright and angry and reminiscent of days long ago.

How very uncharacteristic of him, he thinks, that a wall of all things would make him nostalgic and contemplative, not being the kind for either. He picks up his cup of coffee before becoming overwhelmed with a sudden bitterness and dark shame that mirrored his drink. He pauses a second before throwing it at the wall where it flows off and pools on the ground, motionless and contrasting.

(He doesn't bother to have it cleaned, and it remains there as a stain. When he looks at it later he likes to think that it doesn't bother him. But he does, because it reminds him of feelings he shouldn't have.)

* * *

_Everything is hushed as Giovanni walks into the room, his figure as proud as it is wide and his presence magnetic and absolutely mesmerizing. The sight of the man is enough to send chills down Archer's spine and make his hair stand on end. His eyes survey the room of grunts and as they pass over Archer, the teen looks down quickly, hoping to stay unnoticed. Those eyes, the ones that he has admired for the strength they hid ever since he first saw them, linger on him for a second longer than they should before focusing back on the rest of the grunts._

_(It takes only a second for that gaze to burn into his mind. He never forgets it.)_

* * *

Proton's sneer, along with his voice, is loud, imposing, and as always, unwelcome, arousing him from his thoughts. "You think you can beat her?"

"You should be more worried about yourself," Archer replies haughtily with his back turned and his interests elsewhere. There were more important things to be doing and he certainly didn't have the time to entertain the man, as much as he would have loved to. Proton always seemed to enjoy bothering him at the most inconvenient times. "After all, she did beat _you_."

Any other day he would have been offended, but today the green-haired man laughs, an uncharacteristically soft laugh that bordered on the edge of a tone that didn't sound quite sane, even for someone like Proton. Archer comes to the conclusion that the battle had some sort of profound, lasting effect that he decides he doesn't want to know about any time soon. "You're a real pain in the ass, you know that? I don't know what he ever saw in you."

"And you think you're better?" His scoff is much more malicious and raw than he intends it to be, and he knows there's not way Proton couldn't have noticed. What a pain. He frowns at himself for falling for Proton's immature taunt.

Surprisingly, the man doesn't reply and just smiles knowingly. Infuriatingly, Archer adds privately. There was always a look in Proton's eyes that he never liked, a look that held deep and mindless sadism coupled with amusement, and right now was no exception.

"Why are you here, anyway?" he finally cuts into the pause.

Proton gives an overdramatic shrug. "Why are _you _so determined to find him? Why don't you just lead Team Rocket yourself instead?"

It's Archer's turn to not reply. Proton doesn't look as though he expected one in the first place and smiles even wider.

(It didn't need to be asked anyway; they both knew the answer.)

* * *

_"Hey you there! Yeah, you. Watch over Giovanni's kid, will you?"_

Giovanni's son?_ Archer thinks to himself in wonder as he looked down at the boy who, at a glance, to have nothing in common with the leader of Team Rocket. Where could the red hair have come from? He couldn't even begin to speculate who the mother could have been. He looked much frailer and smaller than the boss as well; the image of him following the footsteps of his father just seemed wrong._

_"What's your name?" he has to ask, at a loss of what to do with him._

_"Silver," he replies, looking down without another word._

_"You're a lucky kid," he says to the boy, who looks back at him with silver eyes that lack everything he admires in his father's. He looks genuinely confused, and Archer sighs. There wasn't much he could explain to someone this young, so he sits next to the boy and waits until Giovanni comes to take back his son. He briefly exchanges a glance with the man, who nods silently at him before taking Silver's hand and walking off._

_Archer regards their retreating figures with something akin to envy at their relationship. He's never asked to babysit for Silver ever again, but sometimes they exchange greetings in the hall; for Silver it is because of the vaguely familiar face from his childhood and for Archer it's because he's the boss's son. They exchange an interesting dialogue only once, when the boy is no longer a boy and he has more than greetings to a lowly grunt to think about._

_("I don't understand why I'm so lucky."_

_He wants to tell the child how magnificent Giovanni is, how he's the most powerful man he's ever known, how there's nobody like him, but he doesn't.)_

* * *

"It seems like you've successfully taken over the Radio Tower."

Archer starts at the sound of _his_ voice. He looks up incredulously, expecting to see that familiar black suit and pants and most of all _those _eyes, but instead he just sees Petrel, grinning at him with a self-satisfied look. He feels the sudden urge to punch him but he can't because that's just what someone below him would do.

"Like my imitation? That girl told me it was awful last time so I decided to practice." When Archer glares at him, he continues with a without faltering, "You seemed pretty convinced, at least."

"You're supposed to be the Director," Archer replies accusingly, avoiding the question. "She'll be here any minute. You shouldn't be slacking off."

"I was just having fun. Lighten up a little."

"In case you haven't noticed, this isn't the time to have _fun_." Everything about their takeover of the tower had been meticulously planned, and he wasn't going to afford have this man fooling around. "I swear, if you mess this up again, it'll be the last thing you do."

"Whoa, scary." Despite his mocking tone, Petrel instantly becomes subdued. "You think this will work? We've been searching for him for three years."

"It'll work if you don't mess it up." He feels emotions and doubts flood into him, a feeling has has become uncomfortably familiar recently, and turns around to avoid Petrel's gaze.

(It's like a mantra in his head: _it has to work_.)

* * *

_"You like him, don't you?" Silver's eyes glint with an odd look, as if he were watching a morbid farce occurring. "My father."_

_Archer doesn't feel as if it is appropriate to reply, and he knows he won't be able to deny the accusation anyway. It isn't in his position to feel what he does for the boy's father and he hates it. Silver will never understand, because he never has. Archer thinks to himself every time he sees him how much he doesn't deserve the honor of being Giovanni's son, how it wasn't _fair_._

_"I told him not to promote you to executive." Silver's upper lip twitches in a sign of disgust, a movement that Archer doesn't miss. "You know he only did it because he thought we were close, right?"_

_"It's very unbecoming of you to lie, Silver," Archer replies quietly, deliberately, knowing better than to let Silver's words get to him more than they should. It's times like these when he can actually see it; the similarities between the boy and his father, when his tone becomes malicious and his words manipulative, but there was still a world of differences between them. Silver was not Giovanni._

_"Shut up. You're not my father. He disgusts me. Team Rocket disgusts me. I don't care what you have to say."_

_Archer slaps him on impulse. He doesn't regret it._

_(Naturally, Giovanni hears about this. Archer bears the disapproval because he knows it was all justified in the end.)_

* * *

"She's here," Ariana says slowly, contemplatively, as if seeing how the words feel in her throat. There is a strange feeling of impending doom hanging over their heads but Archer doesn't dwell on it too much. He has absolute faith in his plan; they have already taken over the Radio Tower, and it wouldn't be long before their message spread. "She made it to the tower."

That means Petrel failed, Archer notes impassively and with little surprise. The oaf probably gave the girl the key. "Are you worried, Ariana?"

"Aren't _you_?" she counters without missing a beat. "She's strong. Stronger than all of us. It's a shame she doesn't work under us, it really is."

Archer shakes his head. "Ridiculous," he mutters to himself. To her, he says, "It doesn't matter now. We've sent out the signal already. Whatever happens now doesn't matter. _He's _going to hear us."

Ariana throws her head back and laughs. "You could have been something great if you hadn't insisted on pining after him, Archer."

He knows this already. But he also knows he has done the right thing.

He doesn't look back as he walks out, pokeballs in hand.

(_"This is Team Rocket. We are pleased to declare Team Rocket's revival. Giovanni? Can you hear us? We have finally made it!"_


End file.
